Luminous

56 - Impasse

From childhood, Arinel had despised her days cooped inside a wagon during her family's annual pilgrimage to Icemeet. However, she'd never felt more relieved slumping down atop the cushioned seats in her carriage. All it would have taken Lady Crosset for a private conversation would have been going to her guest quarters, but as she was currently not Lady Crosset, this would have to suffice.

Jerald shuttered the windows, muffling the huffs and neighs of grazing horses in the nearby stables, then settled down across Arinel and Gretella.

Arinel tugged off her mask. The cold, stale air was a welcome sensation on her cheeks. A plump hand rested upon hers. She turned to find Gretella's unmasked face stricken with confusion and concern.

"My Lady, what's the matter? You're dreadfully pale."

Arinel flailed against the numbing fog in her head for the slightest clue on how to begin. She'd never known her mother, and here was the woman who birthed her, raised her, outlived her.

How should she tell her? Should she unearth the grief and loss that had long been put to rest, douse them with the acid of truth? However cruel and untimely Mother's death had been, Grandmother had made peace with Fyr. Wouldn't it simply cause her unnecessary suffering to learn Erina's death was not destined but planned?

Mother was up in the Heights. Did she ever learn from Freda how she died? Would she yearn for justice? Had she willed that floorboard to shift? Whose sake should Arinel prioritize? Mother? Grandmother? Herself?

Arinel turned to Jerald. He gave her a heavy nod. Perhaps he believed Grandmother deserved the truth, or he'd resigned himself to the fact that secrets were not bound to last. They couldn't continue Tyberne and Erina's work without revealing how they'd found it in the first place.

Arinel nodded back. After a deep breath, Jerald extracted the treatise from the inside of his cloak and handed it to Gretella, then quietly recounted what they'd learned.

Gretella recognized her daughter's handwriting instantly. As she listened to Jerald, her expression morphed from bewildered nostalgia to petrified horror. Her grip slackened and trembled as her arms fell onto her lap.

Jerald wrapped up his story and dipped his head. Gretella's frozen eyes stared through empty air to an altered past. When she finally stirred, it was as if waking from a decade-long slumber.

"So, that apprentice girl killed her." She croaked, her trembling hands gripping the once long-lost treatise,

"Out of spite. For a few pieces of parchment. And Erina had done nothing to deserve it?"

An ominous premonition paralyzed Arinel. She glanced at Jerald and saw the same fear splayed across his face. A moment of hesitation, and it was already too late. Gretella's howl of grief rose slow, as if dragged out of her throat by a mighty hand. Shrill and chilling as the tortured keen of a dying wolf.

Like a branch broken on its back, she collapsed onto her lap, crumpling the yellowed parchment against her bosom, rocking with sobs. Rapids of thick tears flooded her wrinkled face.

"You want to see Dineira punished, Grandmother?" Arinel whispered with all the breath she could muster, "You want me to bring the case before Lady Jaise?"

Gretella shook her head, pressing the papers flush to her chest,

"That hateful wench could burn a hundred times if it would bring me some joy of revenge, but it wouldn't bring Erina back." She spat, stroking the dry, rough parchment as if it were Erina's shining hair. Tears spilled down her cheeks as she closed her eyes against the bitter present.